Grandmother’s vacation leads to Toronto becoming pariah

A SPURT of coughing or sneezing in an hotel lobby or lift may have brought a Toronto grandmother in contact with SARS.

The 78-year-old, Kwan Sui-Chu, was booked into Hong Kong’s Metropole Hotel two months ago for a family holiday. She stayed on the ninth floor.

In the same hotel, was Professor Liu Jian Lun who, at the time, was treating patients with an unidentified, pneumonia-like illness in China’s Guangdong province.

The grandmother, who became North America’s first victim, subsequently left the hotel infected with SARS and brought it home to Canada’s largest city.

She was to become one of seven people who subsequently spread the illness around the world.

Two days after her return to Scarborough, Mrs Kwan developed a high fever.

Her health record showed she had heart problems and diabetes.

A further four days passed before her family brought Mrs Kwan to a local doctor.

He prescribed antibiotics. However, the virus had begun to spread and her 43-year-old son, Tse Chi Kwai, who shared his parents' home with his wife and five-month-old son, developed high temperatures and flu-like symptoms.

Mrs Kwan subsequently slipped into a coma and, ten days after she jetted in from Hong Kong, she died at her home. The local doctor certified her death as a heart attack.

A killer virus, which was to transform Toronto into a global pariah, was on the rampage.

Meanwhile, as Tse Chi Kwai’s condition worsened, his wife also fell ill. She was to become the second victim in the chain of infection.

Mr Tse, however, was so weak that his sister took him to Scarborough Grace hospital where he lay in casualty for 12 hours.

During that time, more than 200 other patients passed through the unit. Among them was Joe Pollack, 76, who needed treatment for an irregular heartbeat.

He was in a bed trolley beside Mr Tse. Within 10 days, both Mr Pollack and his wife were dead.

Doctors treating Mr Tse believed, initially, he was suffering from tuberculosis. As a precautionary measure, against TB, they moved Mr Tse into isolation.

Neither the hospital staff or Toronto’s public health department made the connection between the fatal cases and the unexplained respiratory illness in Asia.

The first indication a lethal organism was at large in the community came when Dr Ada Ying Tak, who had treated Mr Tse's wife, developed the SARS symptoms.

On March 14, three weeks after his mother brought the deadly virus to Toronto, Mr Tse died. At that stage, the hospital’s infection control officer Dr Alison McGreer finally made the connection. It was too late.

Ten thousand Canadians have developed the symptoms with the current death toll at 16.